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Monday, 27 June 2016

Steam sales just aren’t
as much fun as they used to be. There’s no more daily deals. No
more flash sales. There’s no reason to check back every 8 or so
hours to see what’s new. Every discount you see on day 1 is what
you’re going to get for the entire duration of the sale.

So although the sale is
still ongoing, I’ve already made my purchases. There’s no more
surprises to come. My first buy was Doom. Although I thought the
multiplayer beta was terrible, everything I’ve seen and heard about
the single player campaign has been extremely positive.

My second purchase was
the Blood and Wine expansion for The Witcher 3. I was planning to get
this on release, but it arrived just a few days after Total War:
Warhammer, so I really didn’t have time for it.

My next buy was Rise of
the Tomb Raider, which I hope builds upon the very solid, if somewhat
forgettable 2013 reboot. Hopefully there’s more emphasis on
exploration, adventure, survival and actual tomb raiding this
time, as opposed to tedious third person shooting.

My final two purchases
were games I wasn’t quite sure about, but thought I’d give a
shot. The first is Wolfenstein: The New Order, which I’ve heard a
lot of good things about, and combined with Doom, should give me some
quality single player FPS action it feels like I’ve been missing
for a long time.

My last purchase was
Batman: Arkham Knight, which if you’ve followed this blog is a game
you know I was quite looking forward to, at least until it released
in a terrible state on PC. But with a 50% discount, several patches
and player reviews looking up, I decided it was worth a go because
it’s still a game I’d like to play.

So although the sale
may not be quite as exciting as previous years, at least I picked up
a few things, and that means I’ll actually have some stuff to
review over the next couple of months.

Tuesday, 14 June 2016

There was probably only
one game that really got me excited at this year’s E3. There’s
several titles that caught my eye – more than I expected, in fact –
but only one I’m desperate to get my hands on. That game is
Titanfall 2.

I f**king loved the
gameplay of the original Titanfall, and I was a little concerned
they’d f**k around with the formula in the sequel. But based on
what I’ve seen and heard, the sequel plays almost identically to
the original.

It’s also coming with
a full single player campaign which I’m pretty happy about. What
little we saw of the Titanfall universe in the original was full of
potential for an engaging and enjoyable campaign mode. Give me a beta
now, damn it!

Another game I’m
interested in, is the new South Park game. I enjoyed The Stick of
Truth a lot, but I didn’t feel any great need or excitement for a
sequel. But they really won me over with the footage they showed. I’m
also excited for Dishonored 2, which looks to offer an expanded world
and more varied gameplay.

Watch_Dogs 2 looks
neat. I’m probably one of the few people who really enjoyed the
first game. It certainly felt like a game cobbled together by three
different development teams, none of whom were in contact. But there
was so much potential in Watch_Dogs that I hope the sequel can tap
into and deliver upon.

Of course, they’ve
already f**ked up by offering about seven different
Special/Gold/Deluxe type editions that we’ll probably need another
spreadsheet to decipher. I’d also like to see Aidan ‘Batman
voice’ Pearce make at least a cameo. The dude got so much
unwarranted hate, and I hope Ubisoft don’t simply drop him from the
series.

For Honor also looked
neat, but not particularly inspired. As far as medieval style combat
goes, I was more interested in the new Mountain Blade – Bannerlord
– which boasts an ‘improved’ siege system. And it did look
nice, at least until it turned into a very familiar clusterf**k on
the narrow walls.

We saw a little of the
new Mass Effect, which I must admit caused a slight surge of
excitement. Very slight. But I can’t deny it happened. There was a
lot of new Star Wars shit announced, but practically nothing shown.
There was also a reveal of a new Prey, which looks like it has
nothing to do with the original, or the now cancelled original
sequel.

We saw quite a bit of
Battlefield 1 footage, but it didn’t get me very excited. It looks
a lot like the clusterf**k that was Star Wars: Battlefront. Fun to
play in short bursts, but lacking in depth and any long term appeal.
Pretty, but shallow, and probably as short in content as Battlefront
was on release.

A new Quake? No
gameplay, but I’m interested. Fallout 4 is getting more DLC that is
practically turning the game into a new Minecraft. Do people even
still play that game for the story or quests, or do they just like
building shit? I’d consider returning to the game if there was a
‘Repeatedly shoot Preston Garvey in the f**king face DLC’.

Bethesda also announced
a Skyrim ‘Special Edition’, which looks like they slapped a poor
quality ENB over the original game and textures. I recently began
playing Skyrim again, and my modded game looks twice as good as this
shit.

What else? The new
Ghost Recon looks like a slightly more shoddy MGSV in terms of
gameplay, but with co-op. Co-op! I really wish they’d stop with
their scripted ‘gameplay’ demonstrations and unrealistic player
communication.

There was a new Star
Trek: Bridge Commander, only it wasn’t a new Bridge Commander
(which sucks), but a VR Star Trek experience for you and three
friends. If you have three friends who are all Trek fans and can
afford VR.

We saw a little of
Vampyr, which I’m willing to give a shot, if only because I really
enjoyed the last two games from the developer. There’s a new Gears
of War (meh), Dead Rising (eh), and a sequel to State of Decay which,
if they can refine, expand and improve upon the original, might
actually be really good.

A Gwent stand alone
game was announced, which I’m not really fussed about. I enjoyed
Gwent in The Witcher 3, but only really as part of the game, not it’s
own thing. We saw a little of Scalebound, which I’ll keep an eye
on. Oh, and Halo Wars 2. But that would mean ‘upgrading’ to
Windows 10 which is something I’m reluctant to do.

Overall, a pretty good
show this year. There’s enough coming up I’m interested in to
keep me happy. I’ve not covered much from the Sony conference, but
that shit always drags on for over two hours, so I normally just skim
through it, and nothing this year really caught my eye.

There’s a new
Resident Evil, but after the last few, do we really care? There’s a
new God of War which looks like so many semi-open world, third
person action games these days that I’m kind of amused. We also had
Horizon, which still looks neat, but also another zombie themed game
with a moody biker. All this third person ‘cinematic’ action shit
starts to blur together after a while. I’m getting kind of tired of
it.

Thursday, 9 June 2016

Total War: Warhammer isn’t
another Rome 2. Let’s get that out of the way first. This is easily
one of, if not the best Total War release yet in terms of stability,
performance and polish. In nearly 70 hours of play, with two
campaigns completed, I’ve experienced no more than a single crash
and bug.

Performance is very good –
although there’s clearly still room for improvement – with an
average of 40-60FPS on the default Ultra settings. I’ve uploaded a
lot of Warhammer videos to my YouTube channel over the last few
weeks, including some performance tests in which I attempt to ‘break’
the game. So if you want to see Warhammer in action, and see how the
game performs, go check them out.

This means we don’t have
to spend half of this review talking about stability, bugs or
performance. Which is a nice change, for a Total War release.
Instead, we can focus entirely on the game. We’ll begin with AI.

AI in Warhammer isn’t
perfect, but I didn’t expect it to be. I’ve always thought it
important to set realistic expectations of how well an AI can
perform. With this in mind, I’d rate the Campaign and Battle AI in
Warhammer as the best it’s ever been in the series. It still has
its quirks and issues, but overall, across two campaigns and 70 hours
of play, it’s performed at a consistently competent level.

And honestly, I don’t
think I expect much more than ‘consistently competent’. It’s
never dazzled me. It’s never made my jaw drop. But it’s solid. In
battle, it reacts quickly, uses it units appropriately, makes good
use of magic and attempts to flank and overwhelm the player. It
understands how to cycle charge with cavalry for maximum impact and,
somewhat annoyingly, is very good at harassing your lines with ranged
skirmish units.

I’ve seen some criticism
of the AI for how it can throw its Lords (Generals) into battle
early. But I think this criticism stems more from the perspective of
how Generals functioned in previous titles, where it was necessary to
keep them out of the thick of the action. But a Lord in Warhammer is
a ridiculously powerful unit. During my second campaign as the
Dwarfs, one of my Lords racked up 400 kills in a single battle alone.

That said, there are times
when the AI can be a little too overzealous with its Lords or Heroes
– and this is especially true of the Vampire Counts – where if
the Lord falls, the entire army goes with him. The AI also has a
tendency to reposition and reform its lines when a reinforcing army
arrives on the field, as it attempts to merge the new units into its
existing formation. Most of the time, this is the right call, but at
other times, it does leave the AI vulnerable and open to exploitation
by an aggressive player.

But yeah, overall, the
Battle AI is pretty good and I don’t see it needing more than a few
tweaks here and there to iron out the few issues. Siege AI is also
pretty good, both in attack and defence, primarily thanks to the more
‘simplified’ siege system and map layouts. But hey, it actually
works this time, so I see it as a plus. What’s really impressed me
in terms of AI in Warhammer, however, is the Campaign AI.

Warhammer probably has the
best Campaign AI in the series to date. I began playing Warhammer on
the Very Hard setting as the Empire and promptly got smashed. This
was a combination of the bonuses the AI receives on the higher
setting, but also because I’d extended and expanded far too
rapidly.

And regardless of which
difficulty you play on, the Campaign AI in Warhammer will punish you
if you overextend. It targets you where you’re weak, striking at
unprotected settlements and sacking or razing them to damage your
economy. It also attacks in force, sensibly positioning its armies to
reinforce if you move to retaliate. And, whether by design or not,
I’ve often been ‘lured’ by a retreating army into a situation
where the AI suddenly brings 3 or 4 reinforcing armies into range,
completely surrounding me and cutting me off.

Diplomacy, somewhat
surprisingly, is a big part of the Campaign and actually works as it
feels it should. This is helped by some scripted, artificial boosts
to relations between factions during the campaign, as Chaos arrives
on the scene to f**k everyone up.

It uses its Heroes (agents)
very effectively to block armies, damage settlements and assassinate
Lords and Heroes. Perhaps a little too effectively, in fact. I didn’t
have too much trouble with AI Heroes during my two campaigns, but
that’s because I was aware of how irritating AI agents could be in
previous games, so I made sure to counter them with my own.

That said, they probably do
need toning down in the campaign, because even I was able to
assassinate the most powerful Lords of Chaos and remove them from the
game before they’d even attacked. I actually reloaded after doing
this, because it seemed a bit shitty and anticlimactic and I really
wanted to face them in battle myself, even if it put me at a
disadvantage.

Speaking of Chaos, the
‘invasion’ is a little underwhelming, and if you get the majority
of the other factions into an ‘anti-Chaos coalition’ (which is
pretty easy thanks to the scripted diplomatic boosts) Chaos will get
utterly wrecked. I didn’t even finish them off in my first
campaign, as a couple of the Dwarf factions swept in and smacked them
down before I had the chance. It wasn’t exactly the glorious final
battle I was hoping for, as the ‘Faction Destroyed’ notification
popped up without any cinematic or special message.

So that’s something I’d
definitely like to see improved. I do wonder if Chaos being made
playable has actually resulted in them being far too toned down –
so they’re more balanced to play as.
But right now, they’re far too easy to play against,
and I’ve actually had far more trouble with the northern tribes
than Chaos itself.

There are five races in
this initial release if you count Chaos, which may seem small
compared to previous titles, but given how each race has an entirely
unique unit roster, technology tree, Lords, Heroes and campaign
mechanics, I think it makes sense. Because the biggest issues
currently in Warhammer are balance issues, and if there were even
more races and unit types running about, those issues would probably
be even worse.

I said in my First
Impressions post that this release is something of a ‘foundation’
upon which the developers can now build. It may feel a little more
restricted compared to previous titles, but the result is a far more
polished and stable release – one which really doesn’t need much
more than a few tweaks, fixes and balance adjustments, rather than
any ridiculous Rome 2 style patch extravaganza.

With this solid foundation
in place, the develops can now add, expand, adjust, polish and
further optimise the title the over next few years without spending
all their time trying to fix the initial release. Because honestly,
the balance issues aren’t too bad either. It’s just a matter of
making small adjustments to certain units, some of which are
currently too strong, and others too weak in terms of unit roles or
cost/upkeep.

I’ve already written a
lot about some of the ‘controversial’ changes in Warhammer with
regard to sieges and regional occupation, so I won’t go over these
again here. Yes, it’s a different way of doing things, but I don’t
see that as a bad thing. I’ve said several times that I wanted
Warhammer to shake up the series, and I’m pleased to say it’s
done just that. I’ve mentioned how certain aspects of the campaign
are more streamlined compared to previous games, particularly in
terms of region management. But these changes all make sense to me
within the context of a Warhammer themed Total War.

Actually, saying it’s
Warhammer ‘themed’ isn’t entirely fair because, in many ways,
this is Warhammer: Total War, as opposed to Total War: Warhammer. It
embraces the licence and builds the game around it, rather than
attempting to crowbar the licence into the existing formula. And I
think it’s a better game for doing so.

We’ve never had factions
with such diversity or personality before. As someone who knew sod
all about Warhammer going into this title, it’s been a real joy
exploring this world for the first time. The developers have
successfully and thoughtfully blended the best of both worlds into an
engaging and enjoyable mix. It could have very easily turned into a
completely unbalanced clusterf**k, but by showing restraint and
placing limitations upon this initial release, they now have a firm
base upon which to build.

Modding is supported in
Warhammer, which came as something of a surprise, and although there
are restrictions upon licensed content, there’s already a growing
number of mods available to enhance, change or add new content into
the game. Developers supporting and promoting modding from Day 1 is
always good to see.

Okay, so is there anything
else, positive or negative, I’ve not yet mentioned? Underground
battles/sieges are pretty weak visually, with very flat lighting, so
I hope that’s something they improve. And although I like the new
siege system, I do hope we see slightly more elaborate maps in the
future. What’s here is, once again, a solid base, so hopefully they
can build upon it.

Magic isn’t quite
balanced yet, particularly on high unit sizes, with many offensive
spells being rather useless – although ‘augment’ and ‘hex’
spells are f**king amazing if used appropriately, even if they’re
not quite so flashy.

The music and audio in
Warhammer is fantastic, and the game looks incredible at times thanks
to its highly detailed units. Combat feels like the perfect mix
between matched and non-matched animations, with a real sense of
weight and mass, which plays a key role during battle. As I said in
my previous post, I’ve had more fun with the battles of Warhammer
than I have in any previous game in the series thanks to its diverse
unit rosters, powerful Lords and magic.

It’s exciting to think
that despite completing two campaigns, there’s still three other
races I’ve not yet played, with entirely unique rosters and
campaign systems. For the first time in the series, I think I’m
actually going to play and complete a campaign with all of them.
Sure, Attila had like seven barbarian tribes alone, but I never felt
any great desire to play as more than one or two of them.

When it came to scoring
Warhammer, I was a little torn between an 8 and a 9. I was leaning
more towards the 8, because as great as the game is, there are minor
issues (primarily with balance) and this release does serve more as a
foundation than a ‘complete’ product. But then I think about how
much damn fun I’ve had playing this release and how excited I am to
keep playing and experience the other races.

Because even if there
wasn’t more content to come, Total War: Warhammer stands as one of
the best in the series, an almost perfect blend that breathes new
life into the franchise in just the way I hoped it would. Before
Warhammer, I’d felt Total War was growing rather stale. But now, to
me at least, it feels as fresh and exciting as it did all those years
ago with the release of the original Shogun or Rome. That’s an
incredible achievement, and that’s why I’m awarding Total War:
Warhammer a very deserved -

Wednesday, 1 June 2016

I’ve sunk a little over
40 hours into Total War: Warhammer and I feel pretty confident in
saying that it’s one of the best titles in the series. Maybe not
the
best. Not yet, at least. But the potential is certainly there. This
‘core’ release will serve as an excellent foundation upon which
the developers can build over the next few years.

This isn’t another Rome
2. This is possibly the most stable and polished Total War release
yet. Not perfect – there were server load issues upon release which
caused some crashes, but this was fixed within a matter of hours. The
only other technical issue of note, at least from what I’ve
experienced, is an issue with some nasty screen tearing, although
this is easily solved by using Alt-Tab to exit and enter the game.
This seems to be a driver related issue, rather than an issue with
the game, however, so hopefully NVIDIA will get their shit together
and put out a new driver soon.

In 40 hours of play I’ve
seen a single bug – just before a campaign cinematic was due to
trigger, I was treated to a weird montage video of my Legendary Lord
stretched across the screen. But, yeah. That’s it. One bug. Kind of
hard to believe, isn’t it?

That doesn’t mean the
game doesn’t have any other issues, but these are more related to
gameplay and unit balance. There’s certainly some work to be done
here, but I think we all expected this given the variety of units
between every race. There’s nothing noticeably serious, though. The
game just needs a few tweaks and fixes here and there to balance
things out.

But what about game
performance? Overall, it’s very good. Once again, it’s not
perfect, and hopefully it will improve over time (and once we get
those drivers) but it’s easily the best Total War release yet in
terms of stability and performance. I’ve been playing the game on
the Ultra default setting, which isn’t entirely recommended for my
card (a 780), but I still get a very solid and playable average of
about 40-60FPS in both battles and campaign.

I’ve ‘completed’ an
Empire campaign, which I’m actually still playing despite hitting
my objectives. It’s probably the first time in a Total War game
I’ve actually wanted to keep going beyond the victory conditions
just for fun. And it’s exciting to think that even when I finally
finish up with this campaign, I still have four other races to play –
each with their own campaign mechanics and entirely unique unit
rosters. The variety on offer in Warhammer is staggering compared to
previous titles in the series.

The campaign side of the
game has certainly been streamlined if you compare it to say, Attila,
at least in terms of region management. There’s no sanitation,
fertility or immigration. There’s no negative modifiers to various
building combinations. All of this has been stripped away. But I
can’t say I disagree with this choice. Would these things have made
sense within the context of a Warhammer themed Total War? Probably
not. It’s not like the Greenskins are going to be worrying about
their settlement sanitation levels.

Settlement management in
Warhammer is primarily about military, defence and money. And whilst
it’s a more simplified system, there’s a lot more depth added to
other areas of the game – most notably Lords and Heroes – all of
whom have extensive skill and ability trees, combined with
customisable equipment and followers. The main Legendary Lords also
have unique quest chains and gear, which can be won by fighting
scripted quest battles. These are a lot of fun, offering some
narrative flavour to the sandbox campaign.

There was some controversy
prior to release regarding the regional occupation system, but I’ve
honestly not found it to be an issue at all. In fact, I think it’s
had a positive effect on the campaign in the long term. Normally by
about turn 80-100 in a Total War campaign, it starts to get a little
tedious, but I’m nearly at turn 200 in my Empire campaign and I’m
still enjoying it a lot.

The restriction on
occupation really does force you to think differently about where,
when and how to expand. And surprisingly, diplomacy is a big part of
Warhammer, as forming confederations and forging alliances with other
races is extremely important if you want to survive and deal with the
threat of Chaos.

The campaign and battle AI
in Warhammer is the best it’s ever been. Campaign AI, probably more
so than battle AI, which is more of a small step up from what we had
in Attila. It can really punish you in the campaign if you extend too
far, too fast. That doesn’t mean there’s no AI quirks to be
worked on, but they’re pretty minor.

Sieges were the other
‘controversy’, but I really don’t see them as any more or less
simple than previous games in terms of strategy. Here though, with
the emphasis on rapid assault, sieges are actually fun to play.
Probably the most fun in the series yet, with an AI that actually
attacks and defends to a competent degree.

In fact, battles in this
game, thanks to the inclusion of magic, flying units and the sheer
variety of unit types, are probably the most fun I’ve ever had with
Total War battles. This is the first TW game where I’ve sunk any
significant time into the custom battle mode because it’s so damn
fun putting together varied scenarios of different units.

Graphically, the game is
stunning, with fantastic detail to units, animations and effects.
Terrain and architecture seem downgraded compared to Attila, but not
to a detrimental degree. And sound and music in this game is
outstanding. The voices, the creatures, the artillery – the battle
audio is fantastic and is complemented by one of the best soundtracks
in the series yet.

Okay, I’m starting to
gush now, so I’d better wrap this up. As you can probably tell, I’m
very impressed by Total War: Warhammer. I’m excited to keep playing
my current campaign, even though it’s technically ‘complete’ in
terms of objectives. I’m also excited to play as the other races to
see what they offer in terms of mechanics and units.

There’s so much packed
into this initial release, that it’s well worth your time and
money. And as I said, this is only a foundation upon which the
developers can build. Warhammer has breathed new life into the Total
War franchise in just the way I hoped it would. Expect a full review
and my final impressions in the next few weeks.